


The Devil's Herd

by Untherius



Category: Ghost Riders in the Sky (Song)
Genre: Afterlife, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 05:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13140015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: In the afterlife, chasing the Devil's Herd is the least of one's worries.





	The Devil's Herd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OzQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/gifts).



Shane Boyer barely remembered fear. At least, not the mortal kind, the kind that had gripped his still-beating heart like the cooling rim of a wagon wheel. No, chasing the Devil's Herd had become the least of his worries.

He glanced at his constant companion, someone Shane could almost call a man, but hadn't been for longer than either of them could remember. A ghost rider who would only ever identify himself as “The Dude.” Which Shane had initially found frustrating, until he'd discovered the first of many problems associated with being a Diabolical Herdsman.

The first had been food. Or, rather, the lack of it. Oh, they'd always go through the motions of building a campfire out of brimstone, the foulest-smelling stuff imaginable. Why couldn't they build it out of something else, Shane had asked, and more than once. The Dude had always answered with a curt because, and that had been that.

But what they cooked on the fire could hardly be called food. Oh, it looked like food, right enough. Even smelled like it. But every bite was like ash. And he always had to clean off his plate. Afterward, he still felt hungry.

Drink was the same. Always the same fire-whiskey, always the same burn going down, but none of the warm belly feeling. He could chug the whole bottle in one go, and still not get drunk. What was the point? But that was all there ever was to drink, and he always felt compelled to drink it.

So there it was. An eternity of ashy food and watery whiskey and neverending hunger and thirst. But that weren't all, no sir.

Every second of every minute of every day was like the last hour just off the trail in midsummer on the way to a bath. Hot, sweaty, gritty, dirty, smelly, and everything in between. With no relief whatsoever. He couldn't even get used to it. No matter how he tried, his skin still tried to crawl off his body, or so it always felt.

It didn't help that his clothes were always grimy, too. Sure, he'd tried washing them. Except that there weren't nothing to wash 'em in. And the one time he found something, no amount of scrubbing did a lick of good. So he'd given up. At least there weren't lice or ticks in the afterlife, nor did he mention it for fear of someone getting some bright ideas about that.

Sleep, what there was of it, always came in fits and starts. The ground was always bumpy, and all the bumps were always in all the wrong places so that no matter how he moved, he could never quite get comfortable. His blanket was just a hair too thin for warmth, and just a couple of inches too short for full coverage. Which meant he awoke every morning only half rested.

He peered at the biscuits scorching in their rusty Dutch oven.

“Do we really have to eat this?” he asked.

The Dude just looked at him, those red eyes boring into his own. “What do you think?” he replied in that gravelly voice.

Shane groaned. Half an hour later, he'd choked down another almost-breakfast of what should have been biscuits and gravy.

His horse was still lathered from the previous day. No matter what he did, his damned horse always lathered up before noon. In the world of the living, a blown horse had even odds of just keeling over. But here? His horse was already dead, for crying out loud! What was it going to do, un-die? But the damned thing still lathered up, and still made the most horrible squealing noises he'd ever heard from a horse.

And it always threw at least one shoe. Half the time, one of those shoes flew up and hit him in the head. No matter what he did, it always happened at least once each week. How the hell were they supposed to catch those damned cows if he kept having to stop and re-shoe his damned dead horse? He had to concede that was probably the point.

So it was that the two of them galloped along side-by-side, just after another wretched not-lunch of cardboard beans and stale cornbread. Up head, the Devil's Herd thundered up a dusty draw toward the flanks of what Shane had started calling Mt. Bite-Me. The place, like so much of the rest of the trail, was haunted. In this case, by the Thunderbird.

He'd always thought it one of those Indian legends. You know, the kind parents tell their kids to get them to behave. Like the Grimm stories. But, no, apparently, there really was one. There was also a Wendigo, and a Wookalar, and a Chupacabra, and a Bogeyman, and a whole host of other really nasty things that go bump in the night. Which meant the whole afterlife trail was like one long Gorge of Eternal Peril.

So up they went, dust caking his nose, yet again, small rocks flying up to hit him in the face, yet again, and the incessant smell of bovine flatulence, from which he only occasionally had some relief. He wished, for the thousandth time, that he could kill one of those damned cows. Just one. But, of course, they were already dead, so that would be a bit of a problem.

He watched the first of the cows plunge through the usual cleft in the rocks. At the same time, a grating shriek came from a cave in the mountain. A plume of fire and smoke belched out, as it had a score of times before. He cursed under his breath.

At this point, any normal horse with half a brain would have stopped, turned around, and bolted in the other direction. But not his dead one, no. It just kept right on going, and right on lathering, some of it flying up and turning a bit of the dust on his face into specks of mud before drying and flaking off.

He had just enough time to see the Thunderbird crawl out of its hole, all smoke and flame and lightning. He never could tell if the thing had any substance to it, or if it was some incorporeal demon. But he wasn't about to stop and check under its proverbial skirts.

He had a herd to catch. And hopefully, this time, that Thunderbird just might be able to kill one of 'em.


End file.
